Burning rate catalysts for solid propellants have included inorganic oxides, such as, iron oxide, copper chromite, and organometallic compounds, such as, ferrocene and substituted ferrocenes. More recently, carborane and carborane derivatives have been employed as catalyst material for propellants.
A large portion of the prior art effort dealing with burning rate catalysts has been devoted to preventing losses of liquid catalyst material due to volatilization during the processing and due to migrating during storage of propellant. The solid additives in the form of metallic oxides created problems in the area of mixing to produce a homogeneous product. Also the use of solid additive material caused a loss of mechanical properties of propellants. Good mechanical properties are essential for high burning rate applications.
A catalyst material which comprises a polymeric material capable of being cured to form a stable binder-catalyst for solid propellant would be of particular interest.
Therefore, an object of this invention is to provide solid propellant compositions which utilize a polymeric binder-catalyst material which is capable of undergoing cure to form the stable binder for the propellant.
A further object is to provide solid propellant compositions which utilize a polymeric binder-catalyst material to serve as complete replacement for the binder, curing catalyst, and burning rate catalyst for prior art high burning rate propellant.